Dr. Stephanie Kaza is Professor Emerita of Environmental Studies, University of Vermont, where she taught classes on religion and ecology, environmental justice, ecofeminism, and unlearning consumerism for 24 years. She served as Environmental Program director from 2008-2015 and Faculty Senate vice-chair from 2011-2015. She co-founded the UVM Environmental Council in 1996 and served as the faculty advisor for the Office of Sustainability from 2005-2015. She also chaired the President’s Commission on the Status of Women and served on the executive councils for the U.S. Council for Environmental Deans and Directors and the U.S. Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences. In 2011, she was honored with the university’s highest teaching award, the George V. Kidder award for Excellence in Teaching award, and in 2015, was chosen for both the Outstanding Faculty Woman Award and the President’s Distinguished University Citizenship and Service award.

Dr. Kaza is the author of Green Buddhism: Practice and Compassionate Action in Uncertain Times; Hooked! Buddhist Writings on Greed, Desire, and the Urge to Consume; and Conversations with Trees: An Intimate Ecology. She co-edited with Kenneth Kraft, Dharma Rain: Sources of Buddhist Environmentalism and recently edited the tribute volume: A Wild Love for the World: Joanna Macy and the Work of Our Time.

Dr. Kaza is a long-time practitioner of Soto Zen Buddhism, lay ordained by Kobun Chino Ottogawa in the late 1980s, with training at Green Gulch Zen Center, California, and additional study with Thich Nhat Hanh, Joanna Macy, and John Daido Loori. In her academic work, she has been a member of the International Christian-Buddhist Theological Encounter group, the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies, and the American Academy of Religion, and continues to write and lecture widely on topics of Buddhism and the environment. She currently works on climate issues in Portland, Oregon, where she pursues her love of trees, tides, and deep time.

For further information, see www.stephaniekaza.com.